Monterey has plan for keeping Colton Hall in good shape

The city of Monterey has a new maintenance manual for historic Colton Hall.

The city in 2011 commissioned a detailed architectural study on the city's first town hall, which opened in 1849 and was the site of the state constitutional convention the same year.

The report by Architectural Resources Group lays out a comprehensive maintenance and preservation program for the historic building now used for a second-floor museum with city offices below.

The two-story building is "in pretty good shape overall, but there are some issues," said Dennis Copeland, city museums and cultural arts manager.

The Colton Hall study was completed late last year and presented Monday to the Museum and Cultural Arts Commission. An $18,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Monterey County helped finance the study.

It was the first detailed look at the building's condition and maintenance needs in more than 20 years.

"It's really a unique document that provides guidelines for continued restoration of a historic resource," Copeland said. "We're quite pleased with it."

The report says that while the building is in good shape, there are "material deterioration issues tied to moisture penetration (that) need to be addressed."

Among the suggested maintenance jobs: reinstating exterior lime stucco to protect stone masonry; repair cracks in cement plaster at the rear of building; and conduct a paint analysis to determine the historic colors used on windows and doors.

Copeland said the report goes beyond the typical historic building analysis. It also contains a good amount of history about the building.

During the 19th century, Colton Hall was used as a town hall, school house, courthouse and was saved from demolition by a citizens campaign that resulted in the state buying it in 1899 for a historical monument.

During the 20th century, the state periodically leased the building to raise money for repairs. It was vacant for a couple of decades in the early part of the century, used for band practice at times, and in 1918, the second floor was converted to a 20-bed hospital during the worldwide influenza epidemic.

During the 1930s, the building was used for a variety of state, city and county offices, and during World War II, the second floor was used as offices for federal ration boards. The museum was established in 1944 and opened to the public in 1948. The city remodeled the first floor for offices in 1972.